The Pilgrimage to Esquipulas

On Thursday and Friday we drove several hours to Esquipulas, on the Guate-Honduras border. Esquipulas is home to an interesting relic: El Cristo Negro—The Black Christ. Pope John Paul II, Mother Theresa and Che Guevara have all visited this noteworthy Roman Catholic pilgrimage site, which an estimated one million trek to every year. It’s a rough drive along mountain roads. I felt like I was going to die at least twice, and it didn’t help that our driver had to stop at court to sign something relating to a fatal accident he was somehow involved in. Silver said it happened a few years ago, but was corrected—it happened in September. Womp, womp. At one point, we were chugging uphill into a hairpin mountain road turn and a semi leapt out from behind the mountain on our side of the road and I really thought I was going to die, but it was fine. The semi continued to careen downhill, leaving us unscathed.

In any case, we survived the journey and arrived in time to observe five o’clock mass. The church is incredibly beautiful, raised up over a gorgeous garden of vivid flowers and trees. We also happened to catch a perfect moment to admire the landscape spread out in front of the church, as the sun set behind the surrounding mountains.
(click on the pictures to see them bigger!)





We sat through some of the mass, but couldn’t resist; the glass enclosure at the very front of the church can be viewed at any time, and people were steadily trickling by throughout the service.



We made our way around and had our moment to admire this striking piece of history. “The Black Christ dates back to 1595. By 1603 it already had a miracle attributed to it…Father Pedro was eventually elected Archbishop of Guatemala, and he used the power of this position to order the construction of a cathedral worthy of this miraculous icon.” (Frommer’s Guatemala) If you can’t tip your hat to the Roman Catholic Church for anything else, you’ve got to admit that they know their architecture. The Black Christ itself isn’t a work of art, but the cathedral—granted basilica status 1968—is incredible.

We enjoyed the basilica and the grounds, had dinner and settled in to watch “Soy Tu Dueña.” We stayed at a place with a fantastic balcony overlooking the basilica grounds, and I couldn’t’ve asked for more. I got a hot water shower. My day was perfection.



The place we stayed is the little blue guy down at the end:



On the drive back, we stopped and went on a SAFARI. I’m not even kidding. It was super-random, but of all the local-oriented attractions we could’ve visited I’m sure it’s one of Guatemala’s more appealing options. Since zoological attractions in the US are under harsher scrutiny from the likes of PETA, I don’t think I could get this close to these animals outside of this sort of context. They did make us roll up the truck windows when we went by the lions though…





Further down the road, we stopped in Antigua. I LOVE Antigua; formerly the capital of the Spanish New World, Hispaniola, this charming city is full of buildings and remnants of buildings from the Spanish Colonial period. The Plaza Mayor and various old churches and ruins are contrasted against delightfully bright colored buildings that line the cobbled streets. Devastating earthquakes have certainly taken their toll, but the Spanish Colonial buildings that are still standing offer this welcome perspective on the original glory of the city’s ruins.









Back in La Maquina, I am recovering from a miserably long and bumpy car ride. My Blackhawks Parade blister has also been split down the middle. I'm wondering how I'm going to hold up on the active adventures.



Also, today for lunch, we had hot soup and hot peppers, and it is really hot out today. How on earth did soup become a big part of Guatemalan cuisine, when it’s hot and humid here for most of the year? I don’t understand this culture…

Días Cuatro-Seis

On Day Four, the sun was finally showing up. We decided to take advantage and drove up to the nearest city, Mazatenango. The drive shouldn’t be nearly as long as it is—especially considering what I’ve observed as a general lead-footed-ness among Guatemalans—except that whole sections of the road are riddled with enormous potholes. I imagine that driving here is sort of like playing a video game, swerving around trying to avoid the holes, people, motorcycles, bikes, and various animals. There are very regular tumulos, or speed bumps, and their very existence in spite of all the other obstacles already provided by this road serve as nothing if not a testament to how fast people drive around here.

We checked out the mall in Mazatenango, including their version of Wal-Mart. Then, we went into the densely packed downtown area. Silver and I followed his abuelita into a large indoor market area where we picked out some flowers to bring to leave at the veritable tomb of his abuelito. We picked up some fish, sour cream and pan dulce as well, but at that point it was raining. Again.

Trapped inside, we continued with our ritual evening cafécito at the big table with abuelita. This time, we migrated into the small TV room adjacent to my bedroom, because abuelita’s telenovellas were about to come on. Interestingly, the Mexican news was covering breaking news on the assassination of one of its presidential candidates just days before the election. They were showing vans with the glass shattered and bodies on the ground covered with bloody sheets, their feet poking out pitifully at the ends. I’m not sure if it’s because those things don’t really happen in the US, or because they wouldn’t show it if it did, but it was sort of jarring for me. Not jarring in the horrifying way, but jarring because of just how different it was. Jarring like getting a plate of shrimp that are cooked, but still have eyeballs and feelers and legs. You absorb the newness of it, and carry on.

So, we settled in and watched “Soy Tu Dueña,” which turned out to be fantastic. “La Usurpadora” back in Spanish 115 may have turned me on to telenovellas. All the characters in the good ones are incredibly attractive, and it’s so cheesy and predictable that it’s fun and easy to follow even when I can’t understand all the dialogue. As for following dialogue in real life, the learning curve here is super-intense. Every day I can speak more coherently and understand more, and that’s exciting.

After the telenovella, we were standing around the table talking with abuelita and getting ready for bed (the nearest sink to the bedroom is in the dining room) and Lorena, her fairly large parrot whose cage is in the dining room as well, began to talk. Silver’s mom has an absolutely ridiculous laugh—the kind of laugh that you just have to laugh at, you know? Well, Lorena picked up on that while she was here, and so this parrot is laughing outrageously, and the three of us were cracking up in turn.


Day Five dawned promisingly; the air finally felt balmy and the sun was shining. My hair curled up just enough that my bangs looked ridiculous, but it was fortunately far enough into the trip that I didn’t care. We ate the same breakfast as usual—black beans, scrambled eggs, tortillas, and fried plantains—and then rushed to get out of the house.

We brought the flowers to the cemetery. Imagine the cemeteries in New Orleans, all raised up tombs, and replace the elaborate stonework with incredibly bright colors. The cemetery is all turquoise and yellow and pink and green. They showed me the tomb and space for the Bartolon Maldonado family, and began to arrange the flowers. And then I was nearly eaten alive.

I look like I have some kind of disease. The mosquitoes—los sancudos—LOVE me. Everyone says they like the gringa blood; it’s like a rare treat for them or something. I am miserably itchy. Thank God my room is bug-free.

When we got back to the house, I rubbed alcohol all over my legs to get rid of the itchiness, loaded up on the bug spray, and off we went again. We drove down the main street of La Maquina, so I finally got to see the town I’ve spent the last few days in.

To clarify the living situation, the youngest of the three daughters, Mariana, lives here in the school/house complex with her husband Luis and their 6-year-old son, who is adorable and likes me very much, in spite of the fact that I struggle to understand his 1000 mph-Spanish. The middle daughter, Teresa, and family live just a few blocks away in their newly built house. Mamá Gonzalez is the only one en los Estados Unidos.

We stopped by Teresa’s house—which I like very much, by the way—to check it out, and ended up staying there for a while. Silver and his abuelita got comfortable in their hammocks and Teresa brought out some lemonade, so we sat around talking for a while with her and her husband, Rudy. They don’t talk quite as fast as Mariana and Luis, so I was really active in the conversation, and was really proud of my Spanish abilities. We even discussed how Guatemalan Spanish is one of the best to learn from, as it is one of the “cleaner” dialects. I laughed about watching Cuban and Argentine movies for school, and not being able to understand a single word that was said because of the accents and differences in those versions of Spanish.

We left there and drove out to Tulate, the closest beach. I quipped that it’s no wonder the town a little ways south of Tulate is called Chicago—the beaches are pretty similar as far as being dirty and only objectively appealing. It’s not like, Naples or anything, but if you want a beach, it is definitely a beach. We had a nice little afternoon though. The rain has churned up the water, so those big Pacific waves crashing on the black sand looked like, “pura chocolate,” in the words of abuelita. The sky was clouding over, and the layers of color were pretty striking. The black sand, brown waves, soft blue and grey and purple sky—it may not have been traditionally pretty for a beach, but it was a kind of exquisite scene.

We had lunch at one of the little places lining the main path up to the water. It was there that I ate a whole fish for the first time. There was the plate, with the tail and eyes and teeth and everything, and I ate it. The fine little bones were hard to deal with, but it was a delicious fish, so I soldiered on. It was raining—again—by the time we were finishing our meal. We headed back to the house and settled in for the rest of the day. Teresa and her family were there, so we sat around and talked. After they left, abuelita made our evening cafécito and we headed into the TV room to watch the next episode of “Soy Tu Dueña.”

Apparently Tropical Storm Alex is now a hurricane. Fantastic, no? More rain, potentially putting a damper—ha, ha—on any travel plans for the rest of the week. Additionally unhelpful is that there isn’t even another World Cup game to keep us entertained until Friday. The hope is that I get hooked up to the Internet today to post this and let you all know that I’m alive.

Días Uno-Tres

For all that I had butterflies in my stomach at O’Hare that morning, and that I’d been questioning whether or not I actually wanted to go on this trip, I knew the whole time that my next big adventure was long overdue. It had been this very abstract thing that solidified over the course of a rapid-fire week—I got my new passport and found remarkably cheap plane tickets, and all of the sudden it was real, not just talk. Today is day three, which seems, in that funny way adventure days do, to have been both a flash and an eternity.

We left Friday, and the butterflies were gone by the time I was settling in for a five-hour layover in the remarkably nice and comfortable Dallas/Fort Worth airport. It happens to be home to a barbeque mini-restaurant where we ate some ribs in memory of Granny, as 6/25/10 marked two years without her. We poured over our Frommer’s guide, determining what we absolutely had to do during our two months in Guatemala. I listed these mini-excursions on a napkin at the airport bar where we were catching the España World Cup game. This adventure was beginning to take shape.

We arrived in Guatemala City around 8:30 pm, and were picked up and brought to the bed-and-breakfast-style hostel where we spent the night. I woke up on Day Two to a battle cry.
“Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooool!”
So the first of my lessons was taught to Silver over a wonderful breakfast in the kitchen and dining area with others who were staying in the hostel, including the proprietor—and gol-screamer—who was decked out the in the orange jersey of his native Holland. Hostels and small hotels have the power to truly make your adventure, to generate the stories and details that add dimension and texture to your experience. Also, it was $28 per person to be picked up at the airport, shuttled straight to the hotel, provided with a comfortable bed for the night, and fed a hearty breakfast the next morning. Beautiful.

Silver’s abuelita and Dennis, who was driving, picked us up after breakfast and the conclusion of the Uruguay-Korea game. We loaded our four suitcases into the back of the truck and settled in for a 4-ish hour drive. Things look different here compared to my solo trip to Guatemala in 2007. The rainy season is in full swing, and everything is proportionately greener. It’s lovely in that sense. It started to rain a bit during our drive, but when we stopped a half hour or so away from our final destination to eat in Mazatenango, the state capitol of Suchitepequez, and grabbed lunch at the quintessential Guatemalan fast food restaurant, Pollo Campero, it began to pour. Remember that rain that we had in Chicago just before I left, that shut down an expressway and crippled the city and surrounding area? Yeah. That went on here for HOURS. We left the restaurant and proceeded to cruise along streets that were absolutely flooded. Water was flowing through the overwhelmed gutters like rapids. Nevertheless, on we drove, as Silver and I periodically turned around to gaze wistfully at our waterlogged suitcases.

I was warmly welcomed upon our arrival at the school/house complex in La Maquina. The house is almost entirely open-air. We drove through the front door/gate, up the little drive, and unloaded our suitcases. A half-wall—and this by a Guatemalan standard, which makes it more like a one-third-wall—surrounds the kitchen and a dining area, where the enormous table stretches across the entire room. The driveway up from the front door/gate goes passed the dining area and up into the courtyard, where chickens, roosters, two dogs, and six turkeys roam freely.

I was given a little tour even though most of the house can be appreciated from a single spot, not because it is small but because the bedrooms and bath are the only areas that boast four walls. We wandered through to the school, which is presently empty for a spring-break type of week off, and Silver showed me around. It kept raining.

We emptied our suitcases and ruefully pulled out neatly folded and sopping wet piles of clean clothes. Wishing I hadn’t spent an entire day on laundry, I placed my clothes on the large shelving unit constructed especially for my stay, and tried to lay things out as best I could to facilitate drying.

Silver’s abuelita fed us, and we sat around the table talking for a few hours. I met both of his aunts and several younger cousins, and did a remarkable job of keeping up with the strictly Spanish conversation.

I worked so hard on Day Two to follow the conversation en Español that I actually felt reluctant to leave my room when I woke up on Day Three. Forcing myself to engage my brain so intensely so soon after waking up was a challenge. However, I was surprised to find that conversation came easier, and that I was participating much more. This was fortunate, as we’ve been confined to the house all day. A tropical storm is hitting the Yucatan and we’re definitely that storm even here on the Pacific side. Day Two’s several afternoon hours of super-intense rain? All. Day. Long.

I woke up on Day Three to both this storm and an upset stomach. I rarely get sick to my stomach, but this transition is fairly dramatic so I’m trying to be sympathetic to my body’s distress. My empty stomach was determined to throw up something, so I ended up feeling awful and having to pass on Guate breakfast, consisting of black beans, eggs, and fried plantains. The third of these was too appealing to pass up though, so I ate some in spite of my protesting digestive tract. Everyone was wonderful and took care of me. I popped a few pills in Spanish-only packaging, which unfortunately knocked me out for the duration of the Argentina-Mexico game. I woke up for lunch at 2pm with a more-than-healthy appetite. This was fortunate as I thoroughly enjoyed both plantains and avocados, the latter of which had in fact been harvested from the family’s farm here in La Maquina.

Thus far I am both very content and very optimistic. My largest concerns—the language barrier and meeting the familia—have been more or less assuaged. I’m starting to think in Spanish, and I know that switching into that gear is what immersion is all about. Thinking a language is a key to speaking it. I’m realizing just how much Spanish I know, too. It’s all in my head; I just need to coax it out. Fortunately, I’ve got plenty of time.

I’m not sure at what point I start to grasp the whole two-months thing. I’ve only taken one of these cool-water showers thus far, and I imagine those could be the catalyst that eventually generates some longing for home. Really though, I’m an excellent traveler. I’m doing wonderfully, and I am very excited about the next few weeks I’ve got ahead of me.